Bloodlust
by December.Twenty.Sixth
Summary: After escaping from her jail cell, Kaen goes to get revenge on her abusive family. May get a tad bit graphic...


So, this is my first little 'chapter' in a continuously unnamed story my friend (GreyJedi) and I are writing. Not really a prologue or anything, just a tidbit of background information on my main character…

Kaen, Faine, Eryk, Yashar and the mom belong to me, me and me alone. Karn belongs to GreyJedi, who has loaned him to me for the duration of the story. Everyone and everything else belongs to Naughty Dog.

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With a tiny click, the cell door opened wide. From the shadows, a young girl grinned, happy to be free. For nine years she'd been locked in that cell, tortured at her father's hand and now she would have her revenge.

It had taken years before the girl had had anything sharp enough to pick open the lock that held her door shut. Her father, Faine, had trapped her in there when she was only three years old, prepared to use her as a lab rat. And a lab rat she was, for the next several years were filled with torture, abuse and screaming. That all changed the day she had found a chunk of metal lying about on the floor in her cell, a leftover from some new torture device. She sharpened it into a blade. In fact, it was the same blade she held as she exited the cell, heading to the door and her father.

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"Good night boys," Faine said lovingly, putting his two sons to bed. His littlest, Karn, still slept in the upstairs bedroom so to be as far away from the freak as possible. The other two, Eryk and Yashar, had their nurseries down by the creature, a situation that seemed unavoidable. After his daughter was deemed both internally and externally unstable, the crime lord had begun to prepare new rooms for his two oldest boys. No need for them to be in the same vicinity as that demon.

"Night, Daddy," Eryk, the younger of the twins, waddled up and hugged his father's legs tightly. "See you in the mornin'!" His twin nodded vigorously in agreement, stumbling after his brother to latch onto Faine's legs. With a smile, the man patted their heads and gave them a gentle shove towards bed.

Hand on the light switch, the father bid his two boys goodnight once more and headed back into the hallway. He chuckled to himself as he thought about how those two trouble makers would run HIS city. Normally the city would go to the oldest, but as his oldest was little more than a monster…

"Hello!"

Faine stopped dead in his tracks, feeling a large lump rise up in his throat. He knew that voice, knew who it belonged to. That soft but sharp voice could only belong to one person: his daughter Kaen.

Fear nearly rooted him to the spot, but Faine forced himself to go on. Not daring to glance over his shoulder, the man kept moving towards the opposite end of the hallway, desperate to escape the voice. He tried to keep his tone as level as possible as he replied, "How did you manage to escape your bedroom, Kaen?"

A giggle of anticipation, "I picked the lock. Now please, Daddy, will you turn around and look at me? I want to see your eyes when I kill you." He continued to walk, picking up the pace, "Daddy, you're acting childish. Just look at me, alright?"

Her words packed a slap. He said the very same thing to her every time he hit her, every time he put her in the machine, every time he tried to kill her…Against his will, Faine turned towards his child and simply stood and stared. There was no doubt about it – her soulless eyes were those of a predator and her father was the prey. A blade glinted in the low lamplight, screaming death.

Much to Faine's horror, but not surprise, Kaen began to wander nonchalantly down the corridor, humming a cutesy tune that he had sometimes played during his experiments. The man, the victim, stood there, petrified by his tormentor's actions. Bravery drained from him and all at once Faine began to scream, "NO, NO, NO! Please, oh dear lord, please! I swear I didn't mean to – please don't kill me! Kaen, if you have any mercy! I'm sorry for making you a monster, for making you into an animal! Please don't kill me!" But even as those words left his lips, even as she drew her knife, he knew he was as good as dead. A long time ago he had killed her and now she was returning the favour. He watched her raise her knife arm up, watched her smile her insane smile, and knew this was exactly what he deserved – death by his own creation.

The last thing he ever heard was of Kaen whispering, "Liar."

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The blood dripped from her fingers, staining the carpet beneath. He was dead. Finally, that devil of a man was dead. Bloodlust clouded her vision, impaired her thinking and stole away her sanity. Usually such a feeling would have left her feeling robbed, but bloodshed gave her strength, fed her soul and ate from her bitter heart.

"What's going on?" another voice filled the hallway. The girl whipped around, blood splattering the wall, to face a woman – beautiful, confused and condemned. With a sweet smile, the murderess brought the knife to her lips and licked her father's blood. Across the room, a short distance from her daughter, the woman paled to the point of being all but transparent.

"Hello, Mother." She kept her voice no louder than a whisper. "How are you?" As she spoke, she noticed her father's blood was soaking through her socks.

The woman trembled. "What the…Kaen! Darling…how…what happened to Faine? Why is he…?" Innocent eyes widened as she put two and two together. "Oh my lord…you are a monster, aren't you?" Her voice rose an octave. "You killed him! YOU KILLED YOUR OWN FATHER! HOW COULD YOU?"

The youth shrugged. "I stabbed him through the heart and tore it out. Allow me to demonstrate." Before her mother could react, the child pulled back the blade and drove the knife to the hilt in her newest victim's throat, twisting and tearing it out. Blood spurted from the wound like a cork from a bottle. Kaen laughed as adrenaline coursed through her veins, not too unlike how the blood coursed down her body. They were dead. Nothing could be better…unless…

Licking the blade clean once again, the killer strolled towards her little brothers' bedroom and threw open the door. The twins were both sitting on their beds, quaking with fear. They didn't have time to even speak – she was too quick. With two slices, both boys had their throats slashed open and were lying dead on their respective beds. Kaen leaned back to admire her handiwork, but felt as if something was wrong. This wasn't bad enough – these were her replacements, the children her parents had when she hadn't been born a boy. Animalistic rage proceeded to take over her body, causing her to seize the nearest boy and throw the corpse against the wall so hard it left a dent. She repeated this action with both boys until you couldn't tell they were boys anymore.

Re-entering the hallway, she found it much as it had been before. The walls were slightly bloody, a strange contrast to the blood drenched carpet. It was a wonderful sight in Kaen's mind, but there still seemed to be something wrong. She picked apart her mind until she figured it out: the walls were still too close to normal. They needed color, life and emotion like she had never been allowed to feel. There was only one thing to do. Extremely purposefully, she went over to her father, dipped her fingers into the hole in his heart and began to paint on the walls.

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The wall painting took hours to complete and by the time she was done, it was morning. The stench of dead bodies filled the hallway, which was now thickly crusted with dried blood. The once white floor was brown and the walls were marred with finger paintings from her father's heart.

Kaen waited for the Guard to find her. It was inevitable, she knew, that they would come and throw her in jail. Maybe if she was lucky, they'd even kill her. She glanced down at her parents every so often, studying the damage. In the midst of her finger painting, she had brutalized her mother's body a bit more, making it mirror those of her brothers. Her father's body, on the other hand, looked absolutely perfect, save the bloody crust. In her mind, the Guard needed to see the treacherous man's face when they caught her.

Humming a quiet tune, the girl sucked on her finger, savouring the coppery taste in her mouth. That night she had killed for the first time. It was a deed so beautiful that she could find no words. Truthfully, it gave her a very peaceful feeling to know she really was the monster they said she was. No one could ever care about a creature like her. Not in this world anyway. She was safe, clean and happy. No one cared if she lived or died. No one would really notice her enough to use her as a lab rat again. She was safe. Safe as could be.

At least, that's how it sounded. Confusion began to invade her thoughts, making her scratch at the blood. Was that really the fate she would be given? Would no one ever truly care about her? She scratched harder, but it didn't make as much as a dent in the crusty liquid. It wouldn't come off. It would never come off! Never!

"GET IT OFF ME!" she suddenly shrieked, clawing at her arms fearfully. Sanity had returned to her at the precisely wrong moment. "GET IT OFF!" The once crimson liquid was so caked on that no amount of scratching would budge it. Indeed, the more she scratched, the more SHE bled.

When the house guards found her an hour later, she was still scratching her wrists and screaming. Scratching and screaming. And bleeding, bleeding, bleeding…

6


End file.
